Proving Grounds - Boolean (Linux)
Proving Grounds Boolean Linux walkthrough covering reconnaissance, initial access, and privilege escalation.
Overview
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| OS | Linux |
| Difficulty | Not specified |
| Attack Surface | Web application and exposed network services |
| Primary Entry Vector | Web-based initial access |
| Privilege Escalation Path | Local enumeration -> misconfiguration abuse -> root |
Credentials
No credentials obtained.
Reconnaissance
💡 Why this works
This stage maps the reachable attack surface and identifies where exploitation is most likely to succeed. Accurate service and content discovery reduces blind testing and drives targeted follow-up actions.
Initial Foothold
At this stage, the following command(s) are executed to progress the attack chain and validate the next hypothesis. We are specifically looking for actionable indicators such as open services, exploitability, credential exposure, or privilege boundaries. Key flags and parameters are preserved to keep the workflow reproducible for follow-along testing.
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feroxbuster -w /usr/share/wordlists/seclists/Discovery/Web-Content/common.txt -t 50 -r --timeout 3 --no-state -s 200,301,302,401,403 -x php,html,txt --dont-scan '/(css|fonts?|images?|img)/' -u http://$ip
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✅[0:30][CPU:25][MEM:69][TUN0:192.168.45.168][/home/n0z0]
🐉 > feroxbuster -w /usr/share/wordlists/seclists/Discovery/Web-Content/common.txt -t 50 -r --timeout 3 --no-state -s 200,301,302,401,403 -x php,html,txt --dont-scan '/(css|fonts?|images?|img)/' -u http://$ip
200 GET 65l 179w 2765c http://192.168.155.231/register.php
Caption: Screenshot captured during this stage of the assessment.
Caption: Screenshot captured during this stage of the assessment.
💡 Why this works
The initial access step chains discovered weaknesses into executable control over the target. Successful foothold techniques are validated by command execution or interactive shell callbacks.
Privilege Escalation
Caption: Screenshot captured during this stage of the assessment.
At this stage, the following command(s) are executed to progress the attack chain and validate the next hypothesis. We are specifically looking for actionable indicators such as open services, exploitability, credential exposure, or privilege boundaries. Key flags and parameters are preserved to keep the workflow reproducible for follow-along testing.
No additional logs saved.
💡 Why this works
Privilege escalation relies on local misconfigurations, unsafe permissions, and trusted execution paths. Enumerating and abusing these trust boundaries is the fastest route to root-level access.
Lessons Learned / Key Takeaways
- Validate framework debug mode and error exposure in production-like environments.
- Restrict file permissions on scripts and binaries executed by privileged users or schedulers.
- Harden sudo policies to avoid wildcard command expansion and scriptable privileged tools.
- Treat exposed credentials and environment files as critical secrets.
References
- RustScan: https://github.com/RustScan/RustScan
- Nmap: https://nmap.org/
- feroxbuster: https://github.com/epi052/feroxbuster
- Nuclei: https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei
- GTFOBins: https://gtfobins.org/
- HackTricks Privilege Escalation: https://book.hacktricks.wiki/en/linux-hardening/privilege-escalation/index.html